Carol Vaness to Miss New York City Opera Engagement After Car Accident

By Ben Mattison
August 18, 2005

Mezzo-soprano Carol Vaness has withdrawn from a new production of Dukas' Ariane et Barbe-bleue this fall at New York City Opera because of injuries suffered in a car accident earlier this summer, the company announced.Vaness was to sing the famously demanding title role of Ariane. Renate Behle, who has sung the role at Hamburg State Opera and in concert with the American Symphony Orchestra, will replace her.

According to a statement from NYCO, Vaness's doctors "have advised her that she needs intensive physical therapy to recover fully."

The production opens on October 6 and runs through October 22. Paul Emile-Fourny is the director; Leon Botstein, the music director of the American Symphony, conducts in his NYCO debut. The cast includes Ursala Ferri as La Nourrice (the Nurse) and Ethan Herschenfeld as Barbe-Bleue (Bluebeard).

The rarely heard Ariane et Barbe-bleue premiered in Paris in 1907 and in New York in 1911. The libretto is by the Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck, based on Charles Perrault's retelling of the Bluebeard tale.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."